Comparison of Robert Burns' "A Red, Red Rose" and Christina Rosetti's "A Birthday"Though the subject of both Robert Burns' "A Red, Red Rose" and Christina Rosetti's "A Birthday" is love, the tone, diction, and form of each underline the different themes. The theme of the Burns poem is the beautiful ardency of the lover saying farewell to his love, while the Rosetti poem focuses on the joyous feelings of lovers being reunited. Both poems convey love as an emotion that transcends the immediate world of feeling; thus, references are made by the speakers to eternity, and vivid imagery is employed to describe extraordinary settings.

Although both poems focus on love, the tone in the Burns poem is tragic, while "A Birthday" conveys celebratory feelings. The speaker of "A Red, Red Rose" shows reverence for his lover, comparing her to "a red, red rose / that's newly sprung in June" and a "melodie / that's sweetly play'd in tune". The use of these comparisons adds a delicate innocence to his "bonie lass". The comparison to a red rose, an ingredient of the common folksong, is an approapriate way for Burns to characterize this young woman because the image and beauty of the rose is simple and understood universally. The way in which the speaker addresses his love also reflects tenderness and a sense of ownership: "my only love", "my dear", and "my bonie lass". The references made to the rose, the seas, the rocks, the sun and "the sands o' life" give the poem a basis in the natural world. This is fitting, for love is a natural human emotion that occurs without the permission or plan of man. The change of tense in the second stanza from the present to the future marks a change in sentiment as well. It is at this point that the speaker begins to make promises of his everlasting love, thus reverting to a tragic mood. The phrases "till a' the seas gang dry" and "the rocks melt wi' the sun" show the desperation of the speaker convey his dedication to his love. Burns'...

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...Roethke are two poems that relate directly to the speaker. Although both poems share this similarity, the way in which both works or literature are constructed are vastly different. Plath uses visual imagery and poetical tercets to show the pain and suffering of the speaker in her poem, while Roethke uses the musical Villanelle and synesthesia to create his picture of the speaker’s inner thoughts and a sense of awakening.
When reading thepoem “Lady Lazarus” for the first time, the subject matter can be a little difficult to comprehend. The title of this poem and the speaker share the same name, ultimately making connections to the poet herself. Lady Lazarus begins by telling the reader that she has done “it” again. Whatever “it” is; the reader does not know. She is a thirty-year-old who compares to herself to a Holocaust victim while also telling the reader that she has nine lives, much like a cat. The reader figures out that “it” is dying but, like a cat, the speaker keeps returning to life. Lady Lazarus tells the reader about the first two times that she almost died and how “dying is an art.” She describes death as theatrical as she’s possibly preforming her third death in front of a crowd at a circus. She again compares herself to a Holocaust victim as she imagines herself burning to death at concentration camp crematorium. At the end of the poem, she is resurrected for the third time...

...﻿Poets:
Wilfred Owen
Rupert Brooke
Poem:
Dulce Et Decorum Est
The soldier
Similarities:
- Theme
- Period
Theme:
- War
Period:
- During World War 1
Differences:
- Point of view
- Style
- Tone
- Structure
- Choice of Words
- Description/Literary Techniques
- Pace
- Message to public
- Impact towards humanity
Point of view:
- Negative towards war
- Thinks that war is horrible and cruel as throughout the poem Owen makes disgusting remarks and descriptions of the war
- War is horrible as soldiers get hurt and some inhale chlorine, which causes death upon them.
- Positive towards war
- Dying in war for his mother country is a glorious and right thing to do as England shaped the person he became and nourished him throughout these years. (Lines 5-8)
- Soldier’s sin may all be forgiven as he sacrifices his life for England (“all evil shed away”)
- If he shall die in the battle, he shall remain in the foreign country forever as his dead body will turn that piece of land in the belongings of England (lines 1-3)
Style:
- Painful
- Agonizing
- Calmly
- Patriotically
Tone:
- Anger
- Sadness
-Horrified
- Calm
- Peaceful
- Proud
Structure:
- Similar to a French ballade (1st stanza contains 8 lines while the 2nd stanza contains 6 lines)
- Sonnet
Choice of words:
“Cursed”, “Haunting”, “Flares”, “Limped”, “Blood-shot”, “Lame”, “Fumbling”, “Stumbling”, “Drowning”, “Helpless”, “Devil”, “Guttering”,...

...﻿Both the poems start with 'suddenly' which makes the poem sound explosive and means that it has impact right from the very beginning. As well as this, in each poem a change in stanza shows a change in the poem - in ‘Belfast Confetti’ it goes from past to present tense and in ‘Bayonet Charge, it goes from action to inaction and allows us time to reflect. Both poems also use lists; in ‘Belfast Confetti’, the use of the list ‘Balaklava, Raglan...' show how the conflict has affected everywhere. The list 'nuts, bolts, nails...' shows how ordinary things used to build are instead being used to attack and destroy. In ‘Bayonet Charge’ a list is also used, but to different effect, the list; 'king, honour, human dignitary, etcetera' emphasises the pointlessness of war. The use of ‘etcetera, shows that these reasons no longer matter and makes us question why this is happening. Both poems also use devices such as onomatopoeia (stuttering and shot slashed) to replicate the sounds of war. Finally both poems are in free verse which give the idea of confusion.
However there are many differences. Whereas ‘Bayonet Charge’ is in 3rd person, ‘Belfast Confetti’ is in 1st person, this is as in ‘Bayonet Charge’ a bit of distance is wanted to add to the idea of it all being pointless and also as it could be anyone in that situation. In ‘Belfast Confetti’ it shows it to be that particular person’s...

...Poems: Piano, Poem at thirty-nine & Once Upon a time
Paragraph 1 - Introduction
Nostalgia is the desire of things from the past, feeling homesick or remembering a person. This is the central Idea of the three poems; D.H.Lawrence’s ‘Piano’, Alice Walker’s ‘Poem at Thirty-Nine’ & Gabriel Okara’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ convey that they miss their earlier life or wish for a better past.
Paragraph 2 - Write the theme of the firstpoem.
D.H. Lawrences ‘Piano’ is a representation of longing of his past with his mother. The music has a very powerful effect on him and starts to bring back memories of the time he had spent sitting at his mother’s feet. This shows us how much Lawrence misses his childhood.
Paragraph 3 - Theme of the second poem.
Alice Walker’s ‘Poems at thirty-nine’ is a semi-autobiography about a woman with a hard working father who was trying to make a living, so having to end up spend less time with her when she was born but also how she misses her father.
Paragraph 4 - Theme of the third poem.
Gabriel Okara’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ shows us how the process of growing up gradually removed the innocence of his childhood, about how people change over the years and become untrustworthy and live false lives.
Paragraph 5 - Write the summary of the first poem.
D.H. Lawrence’s poem ‘Piano’ shows a man remembering his childhood...

...American writers captured their ideas in poetry. Their poems give us insight into the time period, as well as universal insight about life. Although polar opposites in personality, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman created similar poetry. Dickinson's "Hope is a Thing with Feathers" and Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" share many qualities.
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<br>"Hope is a Thing with Feathers" and "O Captain! My Captain!" contain a similar scansion. Both have a predominantly iambic meter. The unaccented beat followed by the accented beat creates a rising meter. Each poem also contains notable exceptions to the iambic meter. In "Hope is a Thing with Feathers," the first line Hope is the thing' contains a trochee followed by an iamb. "O Captain! My Captain!" contains even more exceptions to the iambic meter. Line 5, But O heart! heart! heart!' consists of an imperfect root followed by two spondees, or feet with two equally accented syllables. Both Line 6 O the bleeding drops of red' and line 8 Fallen cold and dead' have trochaic meters with an imperfect root at the end. The remainder of the poem has an iambic meter until the last two lines: Walk the deck my Captain lies, /Fallen cold and dead.' The iambic meter makes the poem rise until the end where the switch to trochaic meter helps emphasize the conclusion of the poem.
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<br>Along with the irregularities in meter, neither poem has a regular...

...﻿ICCSE ENGLISH LITERATURE POETRY COURSEWORK
In the poems you have studied a recurring theme is that of ‘loss’. This can take many forms: death; identity; hope or loss of innocence
Discuss the poets’ treatment of any aspect of the theme of loss in at least 6 of the poems you have studied.
A minimum of 3 poems should be taken from the anthology.
Poems for discussion:
In detail
- Prayer Before Birth (Louis MacNeice)
- Do not go gentle into that good night (Dylan Thomas)
- A mother in a Refugee Camp (Chinua Achebe)
Referred to
- Poem at Thirty-Nine (Alice Walker)
-Death Of A Son (Jon Silkin)
-Mid Term Break(Seamus Heaney)
Loss is universal. An inevitable condition of life; you cannot have one without the other. Whether it is the loss of innocence of an unborn child in “Prayer Before Birth” by Louis MacNeice, a mother’s loss of her young child to poverty and starvation in “A Mother in a Refugee Camp” by Chinua Achebe or a poet’s loss of his father by death in old age in “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. Although the three poems address the same central theme, they are dealt with in very different ways including contrasts in structure, use of language, imagery, symbolism and the general feeling towards loss whether it be anger, fear or regret. Most of the circumstances include an undertone of desperation due to the inevitability of the...

...In the two poems, The Magpies by Denis Glover and Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley a common theme is that of man’s immortality. In The Magpies this theme is made especially apparent through the comparison of the immortality of Elizabeth and Tom with nature’s ability to remain constant due to its continuous regeneration. Meanwhile, in Ozymandias a king has a statue built however just like him the statue does not survive and is actually left abandoned and forgotten in the desert. This theme of immortality is also shown through a range of techniques such as the structure, choice of language, imagery, movement and sounds. Likewise, this theme is illustrated through the distinctive tone of the author in each poem.
The poem The Magpies has a very set structure of six four-line stanzas. In each of these stanzas the last two lines describe the sounds of the magpies, while the first two lines are about Tom and Elizabeth. The second line of each stanza also rhymes with the last line of each; “The magpies said”. For instance in the first stanza the second line is, “The bracken made their bed”. This rhyming of the lines about Tom and Elizabeth with “the magpies said” links the two together and creates the idea of the magpies watching everything Tom and Elizabeth do. Likewise the structure of the last two lines being about the magpies enhances the idea that the magpies are constant and despite the time that has passed, “the...

...Name” written by Edmund Spencer and “Sonnet 63” written by William Shakespeare both instill a figurative idea of immortality throughout the course of time long after the writers have passed on. Shakespeare plants his beauty within the lines of the poem after his lover’s physical beauty deteriorates with time. Spencer, however, keeps the memory and love for a woman. Although both poems are about two different subjects, the main theme that connects them is that they immortalize two non-physical ideas. The hope of every writer is to have their work famous and studied long after their death. Not only have these two poets immortalized their poetry, but they also succeeded in forever remembering beauty and love.
Spencer writes “ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away:” (1-2) in an attempt to have his love’s name remembered forever, but every time they do, the wave comes and destroys the name. Since writing it in the sand of a beach doesn’t prevail in preserving the memory of his love, the writer turns to another canvass: poems. “My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the hevens wryte your glorious name.” Spencer uses the word “verse”, which in this case means poem, to convey that through the poem itself, the woman written in it will live on forever. Words are never forgotten, especially written words. “And in the heavens write your glorious name:” (12). This...